Tumblr theme prompt for 'Unbind me' or 'set me free' by fabulousanima.
"Hey, Harvar. Light?" Soul says. Harvar obliges with a snap of his staticky fingers, and Soul takes a deep and appreciative breath of his newly lit cigarette.
Maka glides by, arms loaded down with several bridles and various horse things, and frowns at him. "Those things smell terrible," she informs him.
He snorts a little, amused by how much she's carrying; she's practically drowning under it all, but will she take two trips? Hell no. She's far too stubborn. "They're relaxing," he finally informs her.
She scowls harder, face crinkling up. "You smell like Stein," she says insultingly before swanning off, nose in the air.
He gapes after her, then whirls on Harvar. "I do not. Tell me I don't smell like that snakehearted bastard!"
Harvar blinks at him calmly. "Cigarettes are cigarettes," he says finally, pronouncing the words as if it's taken him a long time to work them out.
Soul wilts back against the side of the train car they're leaning on, scowling. Harvar is staring at him oddly, and Soul stares back once he notices. "What?" he barks.
"Not a thing," Harvar murmurs before hopping up into his train, a trail of sparks floating in the air behind him.
The next day, Soul can't for the life of him figure out why Kid is staring so much. Sure, they haven't seen each other in quite a while, what with Kid's assault on Brooklyn, but it's getting a little unnerving. Kid's eyes do this swirly thing when he's focusing intently. At last Soul can't take it anymore, so he turns sharply and snaps, "What is it? What are you staring at, skunkface?"
"Skunkface," Kid says slowly, eyes spinning. "Before I left you would have called me at least several highly vulgar and creative terms and then shoved me to the ground if you caught me staring."
Soul can only gape at him. "I- you- no- no I wouldn't have!" he sputters at last. "Bastard," he adds darkly before stalking off.
Soul's tired, hot, and grumpy. It's been a long, blazing summer day, and tomorrow they have to tear down the tents to prepare for hitting the road again, and tonight he has to get through at least a chapter to avoid Maka's wrath. At least the last of the rubes are trickling out; he shoves his mask up onto the top of his head, relishing the cooler air across his skin, and keeps playing idly, churning out a few tunes for the remainder of the audience as they leave the big top.
Then someone taps his shoulder. He cranes his neck back. It's a girl, dark-haired and doll-faced, probably a little older than he is, but she has a nice smile. "What?" he says.
"You're very good at that," she observes, pointing at his piano. "I'm a pianist too, you know."
"Really," he drawls, feeling a bead of sweat slip down his neck. "I thought I was the last one left in the world."
She squints, thrown by his deadpan delivery, and then shrugs it off. "Who taught you? I mean, where did you school for it?"
He goes rigid. "Nowhere. I'm rather busy, if you don't mind."
She isn't put off in the least. "Oh, but I'd really love to know! Please?" Then she walks around him and leans on his piano.
He grits his teeth, closes his eyes, counts to ten, and says very softly and dangerously, "Get off my piano and get out." There's a startled breath as she finally notices his teeth in the dim lighting, and then running footsteps. Satisfied, he keeps playing, just for fun, because the tent's empty now.
"I cannot believe you didn't just send her off in tears to have nightmares for the rest of her life," Mira says, amused. He startles a little and opens his eyes at the sound of her voice.
"Oh," he mutters, inexplicably embarassed. "Well. She's not worth the effort."
"Of course," Mira says, lips twitching. "You know, you've really changed for the better lately. You're almost tolerable for more than a minute."
He snarls at her. She just snickers and walks off to begin disassembling a piece of equipment. Soul stares at his piano before getting up to wipe that stupid girl's fingerprints off it. Mira's not wrong, really, and everyone has been acting so surprised by him lately. Maybe he really has gone soft. It doesn't feel bad, though. It doesn't feel as dangerous as it used to.
Then he hears Maka's voice coming from outside the tent, singing a few lines of some song interspersed with a few chiming laughs and mocking reprimands. She's with her horse, he knows, and when he looks down at his reflection in the glossy surface of his piano, he's smiling, all his teeth on full display.
She's taken things from him, his little bearcat, but she's also given him things, and one of those is freedom.
